Gauti delighted with win despite missing century

As most members of a relieved Indian team walked towards the team bus after a narrow victory against Australia, the three opening batsmen — Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar — headed to the hotel in a car.

Much talk about the Indian team has been about the rotation policy for the trio to give an extended run to Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina. It was master batsman Tendulkar's turn to be benched on Sunday and the man who replaced him produced a solid 92 to lay the foundation for the four-wicket victory.

Holding fort

Gambhir was set to see India home with a big hundred when he looked unlucky to be adjudged lbw against Clint McKay to a ball that seemed to have pitched outside leg stump.

But Gambhir was satisfied. “There has been a lot of talk that I haven't got a hundred and all that stuff. I have been consistently getting runs, if I start getting desperate for a hundred, it will go away,” he said. “As I have always believed, any runs that can help the team win is far more important than scoring a hundred and being on the losing side.”

Coming out fresh

Despite being forced to rest for almost a week — he was rested for Wednesday's game against Sri Lanka — Gambhir wholeheartedly supported the rotation policy. In fact, he demanded it be extended to the other slots in the team as well.

“With the amount of cricket we play, it's always important to rotate players and keep them fresh. Australia have rested Mike Hussey as well, because they want to keep him fresh. Sometimes we talk about how we don't rotate our players. Now we have started rotating them,” Gambhir said.

“We know we have good bench strength. Someone like Rohit or Raina, I think, get that extra opportunity. Hopefully we can rotate everyone, which is very important.”